KSP Visual Mods – Step-by-Step Installation Guide – v1.3.1

You’re already maxing out KSP’s built-in graphical settings, but you want more. Or maybe you just want a different look and feel. Visual mods are often a player’s first foray into the world of modding – not just for KSP, but across the board. Additional textures, lighting presets, perhaps even model replacements are amongst the sought after additions. Included here is a selection of KSP visual mods with instructions that are hopefully explicit enough for anyone to use.

KSP can be beautiful just in vanilla – any space nerd is tickled by Jool rising over Laythe – but you can really up the ante with just a handful of mods from the community.

I haven’t found the mods listed here to be compatible out-of-the-box, but I’ve listed the steps necessary to get them all working together. With just a little coercing, they’ll give you an incredible visual experience. Please get in touch or leave a comment if you experience any difficulties and I’ll help out as best I can.

Check out some of my tips to make this process a bit smoother. This includes my recommendation to install these mods manually rather than by using CKAN. If you want to use CKAN, you’ll have to navigate the issues that throws up on your own; this guide does it the manual way. Some quick tips in case you didn’t click through that link:

Backup your whole Kerbal Space Program installation directory before doing anything. This is doubly true if you already have a stable set of mods!

Install the mods one at a time. Launch your game after installing each one to make sure it still works. I recommend going at least to the Command Center to make sure everything’s working graphically!

KSP Visual Mods

If you intend to install all of the KSP visual mods below, I recommend reading through this list in the order given; I’ll assume you do so in order to deal with incompatibility issues. These installation instructions have been tested on the most recent version of KSP at the time of writing, which is version 1.3.1. There might be additional problems running any other version, especially those before 1.2.

Comments (25)

Everything works fine but in the last step everything breaks. If I make the textures png, the loading screen before starting a new game after the main menu lasts forever. Also, I think that you have to make terrain in svt pngs or else u get rendering stripes. Also, i get a very ugly thick black line on the far horizon over the ocean. I have tried everything please Help! (otherwise great guide thank you :D!)

Hi Andres! Thanks for trying the guide out! Your feedback is very valuable, so thank you also for taking the time to reach out.I'm sorry you're having difficulty with the final step! It is the most problematic. I've heard of similar symptoms from other users, so you're not alone, but I'm also not sure what the solution is at this stage.I did mention in the instructions to convert the SVT files from DDS to PNG, as you correctly pointed out. As it happens, I think this is the cause of the perpetual loading screen that you pointed out. I think it's actually the SVT PNG files that cause the black screen you're referring to.I haven't figured out the solution to this problem yet, but I'm working on it!The black line on the far horizon is also something I've not worked out. I honestly normally just put up with it because the rest of the game is so beautiful. It looks like an aliasing problem, but again, I'm not sure what's causing it.Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I will continue to test these instructions to see if I can reproduce the issues other people see.

Wow, that was a very fast response, thanks.
If you are kind to suggestions, i think that there adding Reentry Particle FX mod and RealPlume would be a good idea, and perhaps KSC++.
Also, please consider doing a gameplay mods and a parts mods list, I´d be glad to help.
Amazing page, glad I found it :)!

Hi Andres. Could you please try the following: 1) Delete your existing SVT folder, if it still exists. 2) Re-download SVT. 3) Unzip SVT and move to GameData, as before.Don't run ReShade after this!Hopefully you'll now be able to run without graphical problems.

Great list of mods and instructions. will a little bit of fiddling i got all but the last one to work and it looks great! I think that Module Manager is required for several of the mods and once i realized that it fixed most of the issues I was having. Also, for those who haven’t completed the mods yet, make sure you save a backup before you install the last one. that will save you a lot of time.

Hi Luke! Thanks for the feedback and extra tips! I think I left a note near the top of the page to backup, but it's always worth emphasising that one! I also believe Module Manager comes packed with one of these mods - perhaps Kopernicus? Did it not appear for you?

Hello! I have a problem with SVE. When I try using it (without configs, just as instructed) I get white Kerbin (everything-s white except terrain). After that I delete SVE but strangely enough whiteness remains until I swap my Scatterer with a new one, as if Scatterer becomes permanently damaged. So is there any way for me to get those sweet clouds? My other mods are EVE, Scatterer, GAP (giving aircraft a purpose), ContractConfigurator, ModuleManager.

Hello! I’m having some trouble with EVE/SVE. I’ve unzipped both and they’re both in my game data folder. I also put the high res textures for SVE inside of the SVE folder in gamedata. Upon loading up KSP, nothing looks different (looks like I’m only using scatterer). No clouds, city lights or anything. I’m pretty new to modding, so any help would be appreciated

Hi Dylan! Can you confirm that your GameData folder looks as described in the EVE + SVE section of the guide, that you didn't install the EVE Configs, and that you only installed one set of textures in the SVE folder?

I just checked, everything looks the same on my end. I also downloaded module manager to see if it would do anything to help but it didn't. It said that it found 26 patches but didn't seem to get SVE or EVE working. I'll remove and reinstall the mods again just to check

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